Chinese New Year = Holiday!

Hey Everyone!

Happy year of the pig! The Chinese New Year fell on a Saturday, Sunday, Monday this year. Surprisingly our Hakwon gave us another 2 day holidays on top of that. It was so nice to finally have a REAL break from school and go sightseeing a bit. We traveled to Busan, which is the second biggest city in Korea and is located on the south most coast. It is the biggest port city in Korea and absolutely beautiful! We loved it. The temperature was 15 degrees, so we were wearing T-shirts (we're from Saskatoon here!). We got some funny looks since most people are still dressed in their winter woollies.


We went to a really big aquarium for a couple of hours and saw some really big/ugly fish and other unidentified swimming objects.

We spotted this ugly guy at the aquarium on Haeundae Beach. Look at those teeth!

After that, we spent an hour or so walking by the ocean and watching the local women and children grab shellfish and octopus out of the water as the tide came in. It was really neat, and gave us a little taste of what it's like living as a Korean in a port city.


The first night in Busan we stayed at a hostel about a block away from the beach. It was great! That night we were in a mad hunt for raw fish ("hwe"), so we managed to find some friendly (albeit crazy) ladies that cut us up some fish. It was pretty good, but after eating a KILOGRAM of raw fish we were feeling pretty sick. We spent the rest of the night holding our bellies!

The second night we stayed in a hostel close to the "Jalgachi Market". It's apparently the biggest fish market in Asia, so it was pretty smelly. There was about a bazillion stalls with different kinds of fish, shellfish, sharks, wales, whatever you could possibly want from the sea. Since we have a fish market close to us in Daejeon, we didn't see too much that we hadn't seen before.

In saying that, however, I saw the grossest thing I think I ever have. People love to eat eels here (there are 2 or 3 restaurants on every block), but we had never really seen them being prepared. Anyway, we watched a lady one day preparing them and it was horrible! They first cut off the heads, then they SKIN the eels live and throw them into a pot. The skinless, bloody eels continue to squirm around for a good 10 or 15 minutes before they finally die. It was awful! Needless to say, I had a really bad dream the following night that involved the ladies "accidentally" mistaking my arms for eels - you can imagine!

During the last day in Busan, we went to a tower up on top of a mountain that looked over the city. It's amazing how many buildings that they fit into such a small space. Take a look:

We met a really nice guy when we were in a park. He ended up taking us around in his car sightseeing for an hour or so. The kindness and hospitality in some Koreans totally takes me back sometimes.

We saw something interesting at the bus terminal before we left. We were both staring at a giant billboard trying to figure out why a certain man in the picture looked so familiar. Finally, I said "It's Paul Martin!." Andrew didn't agree, so after some more in-depth analysis we figured out that it was President McKinnon at the U of S! The world really is WAY too small sometimes.

The weather is finally starting to warm up here (stop reading now Saskatoonians!). We're both such babies about the cold in Korea, it's hard to imagine that we're born and raised in Saskatchewan. Brrrr! I don't know how we're going to handle -30 degree weather again next winter - and not even to mention the SNOW. I think we picked a good year to go work abroad.

Anyway, not much else is new. To leave you all in suspense, our blog is about to get a whole lot more interesting! Stay tuned!

Miss you all so much! 5 more months until we're home!

Love, Tara and Andrew
XOX